Alvis, the most underrated British car brand – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Or at least I don’t think so. I admit I lack entirely any empirical evidence to support this view (though it would be hard to imagine what form it might take), but from being in the business, talking to friends, racing pre-war cars up and down the country over the years including at Goodwood, I very rarely find talk turning to Alvis.

And yet Alvis not only made some exceptionally fine cars before the war (I cannot speak for later cars about which I know little), many were brimming innovation and highly successful in competition. How many beyond the GRRC know, for instance, that 1.5-litre Alvis cars came sixth and ninth at Le Mans in 1928, coming first and second in their class and beating the victorious Bentley in the Index of Performance? And that these world beating little cars were actually front-wheel-drive? Alvis also made straight-eight, supercharged front-drive competition cars which must have been extraordinary to drive.

On the road they brimmed with innovation. If you compared a mid 1930s Derby Bentley made by Rolls-Royce to an Alvis Speed 25 of the same age, you’d find it was the Alvis with the independent front suspension, the Alvis with the servo assisted brakes and the Alvis with the (world’s first) all syncromesh gearbox.

I’ve driven plenty over the years, but a few have really stuck in my mind. The first was a 1938 12/70 saloon, because it was understated to the point of anonymity. I’m not sure I’ve driven another car from that era that was so unassuming yet so good to drive. It wasn’t that fast – though 80mph in 1.8-litres was pretty good over 80 years ago – but you could chuck it about and it absolutely loved it.

Then there was a Speed 20 to which the voracious engine of a short chassis 4.3 had been fitted, which was quite a popular modification. The result was a missile by the standards of the day, a low slung raffish looking saloon that would absolutely blow the doors off any Bentley from the same era that came sniffing at its exhausts. It sounded brilliant too – a bass growl that grew and grew at the revs rose. Its only problem was an unchanged radiator which was quite unable to keep up with the cooling requirements of an engine almost 2.0-litres larger than the one for which it was designed.

My softest spot however is for a 1929 Silver Eagle bought by my father in 1958 as his daily driver in response to the Ford Anglia offered to him as a company car. He sold it twice when money got tight, and as soon as we were back in the black he bought it back. I then had it for 15 years until I had to accept that my work meant it was never getting used, so now it is with one of my brothers. It has now been in my family for over 60 years.

Actually, and to be honest, I think it’s a good rather than great Alvis: its six-cylinder engine is a nice idea but it rather unbalances the car and is in some ways too much for it. If you tried to get away quickly on a grippy surface it would snap its half shafts – I know, I did it – and it was quick to boil too, which is rather less forgivable than it was in the Speed 20 hot rod mentioned above.

The reason was simply that the Silver Eagle was based on 12/50 with its little four-cylinder engine. And this is the 12/50, at least of those Alvis I’ve driven, that to me best sums up all that is good about the marque. Indeed, if I think about the car that best captures my image of what a sporting British vintage car should be, it is always an open 12/50 tourer with polished aluminium body that comes to mind. That eager engine, the challenging gearbox which is so rewarding when you get it right, the enthusiastic handling, the great looks… it’s all there. And for so much less money than you might expect.

Someone I know once rather disparagingly dismissed such cars as being ‘a 3.0-litre Bentley for those who can’t afford a 3.0-litre Bentley’. But albeit for entirely the wrong reasons, he was completely right. A good 12/50 does most things nearly as well as a standard 3.0-litre (and has much nicer steering) but is available for a fraction of the money. And that, surely, is a good thing.

Le Mans image courtesy of Motorsport Images.